


A Neutral Dream

by atomeek



Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Character Death, Post-Canon, Post-Series, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 22:12:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1874364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomeek/pseuds/atomeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the first things they do in Paradise is to build a graveyard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Neutral Dream

**Author's Note:**

> So after reading the entire trilogy while avoiding studying for my exam (yeah, I actually procrastinated so much I read an entire series of books because I'm so goddamn ridiculous like that urgh), I now find myself ridiculously attached to the characters (can you guess who's my fave? *Hint, he dies, like all my favourite characters because being dead is apparently a very attractive trait in fictional characters).
> 
> Anyway, just wanted to throw something together for the fandom. It's a little weird, but that's 'cause I wrote it haha.
> 
> **Note:** I'm following Thomas's decision to not tell Minho about how Newt dies (that was in the book, right? I can't remember the exact details so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) though I don't necessarily agree with it.
> 
> **Disclaimer:** _The Maze Runner_ trilogy is James Dashner's.

One of the first things they did in Paradise is to build a graveyard.

Thomas hikes through the forest and finds a small clearing that reminds him of the one back in the Glade.

He falls asleep there that night, nothing but his T-shirt to separate his back from the dirt of the forest floor. A stick digs into his shoulder.

For the first time since leaving the Maze, he sleeps throughout the night without a single dream.

The next day, he brings Minho, waking him up at the first sign of sunlight. Minho asks, sleep-clumsy, where Thomas was last night.

He doesn’t ask where they’re going.

For the better part of the morning, they collect the thickest sticks they can find, anything that is already dead and forgotten because everything else that was usable have already been salvaged.

Paradise is only Paradise because they aren’t the ones that need the graves.

When the sun hits its peak, they collect Gally and Frypan from wherever they’ve been working that day. Frypan protests that it’s lunchtime, that he should be handing out rations to the survivors.

When he sees the crosses they’ve already finished, two pieces of wood bound by twine, he solemnly approaches one and sits in front of it.

For a while, it’s very quiet in the clearing.

Gally follows next, swallowing audibly. He chooses a slanted cross, one side heavier than the other so that it stands crookedly. With a gentle hand, he rights it.

For the rest of the day, they make more crosses. They knew now why they made crosses back in the Glade, even though at the time, they had no memories of tombstones or cemeteries or funerals. They just knew, like how they know now why they need graves even though they have no bodies to fill them with.

It’s almost dark when they make the last cross, a skinny thing that has to be weighed down with rocks. Their fingers are scratched raw, their knuckles white with scrapes.

Red twine lines crisscross their palms like scorch marks.

They line up the crosses, a long row that stretches right across the length the clearing.

The ground remains flat in front of each and every one.

Minho takes a knife from his belt, the one that he’s kept on his body since he became Keeper of the Runners, and holds it out to Thomas. The blade is blackened in spots, a testimony to its usage. The handle is a little bit loose, a little bit stained with dust and dirt.

A little bit like Minho himself.

Thomas takes it in his palm, his fingers a cage around it. It doesn’t feel perfect but it doesn’t feel wrong either.

It actually feels a little like the first time Teresa spoke to him through their minds, as if he knew that they’ve done this before, that they’re supposed to be doing this right now.

The first name he carves is Teresa’s. Her cross is tall and straight, not the least bit tilted out of line.

He passes the knife on to Gally who picks a cross near the edge of the clearing and carves it for Ben.

Frypan does Winston’s and Zart’s and Jack’s. Minho carves the names of the runners who had been lost, the runners he had kept for two years and who were gone in less than a month.

When the knife gets passed back to Thomas, he’s already kneeling in front of an unmarked cross.

His hands shake as he cuts away at the wood. It’s always the letters with curves that are the hardest to do right.

Chuck’s takes the longest time to finish.

When he’s done, there are only two more crosses left. They stand next to each other at the centre of the line of graves, Teresa to the left and Chuck to the right then the countless other Gladers stretching around them like a wall.

Minho takes the knife first this time, falling to he knees in front of the taller cross. They don’t ask each other which name they’re going to carve, but Thomas already knows which one Minho is going to do.

He wipes an arm across his face afterwards and Thomas takes the knife and dutifully marks the shorter one as Alby’s. When he stands, he sees how similar the names look when they’re both made of crude slashes yet Newt’s look neater, more orderly somehow, as if Minho knows what Thomas knows about their friend’s last moments.

And that, Thomas will take to his grave.

They sleep there that night, in the clearing of trees and it’s almost like they’re still in the Glade, the paradise before this Paradise.

In the silence of the night, they pray, as if they knew how to, that they did the right thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted on [newtragedies@Tumblr](http://newtragedies.tumblr.com/). I promise that when I first made the url, it was supposed to read as "New Tragedies" not "Newt Rage Dies". _That_ was just a happy (unhappy?) coincidence.


End file.
